Talk:Exe0.2 Molly Schwartz

hi Molly. thanks you for this very interesting text. I cannot wait to try out the installation - is sounds very compelling, but it is quite hard to imagine and say anything about the experience before I have tried it. Anyway, your initial question - does speculative fiction serve primarily to run an alternative present or debug the future? - is very interesting. Very similar to my methodological use of speculative design/design fiction to imagine alternative presents / possible futures of design. Also the influence of science fiction in your work I found really relatable to my own influence of the Bataille novel. I am wondering if the sci-fi novel of yours relates more to present/future societal and political issues of religion and conversion, and/or if these also includes technological aspects? I guess they are somehow related but I would like to hear more about your thoughts on the role of code and technology in these stories/narratives, not only as a metaphor for the execution of reading/writing, but maybe more ... I don't know. Maybe it is expressed through 'test code', as you write, or maybe it could be expressed as somehow 'prototyping' the future? It is something I struggle with my self, the inclusion of technological aspects in fiction as if/how I should response to this in my practice. Additionally, I really like your bold choice of topic. Did you think about how/if Geoff's talk on violence and terror at last execution relates to the fictional universe? Is the somehow passive experience of 3D - just watching scenes pass by - relate to the present situation of terrorism, or does it somehow relates to the submissive role of women in the fiction? I'm trying to get at how the medium of your installation itself mimic, express, or alter the narrative. Maybe we can discuss this question at the workshop :-) see you soon - ml. p.s. sorry for the delayed comment

comment from Magda below (apologies for being late)

Speculative fiction is definitely a rich method to employ when the aim is to generate conditions to experience the unknown and other stories, fictions, movements. The connection between this form of writing and the reading that you propose, the two coming together as operation and execution of a particular kind of idea as process and experience is promising. This is a well written and researched piece and I am interested in your presentation/installation in Malmo. I do have few issues with this proposition, however, which for me muddle the plausibility of aesthetic experience (that’s what I think you are aiming at in your presentation) from the beginning. I take a highly subjective issue with this here, but to a certain degree aesthetics is a subjective experience. But, also I end up having difficulties to recognise the subtleties that you obviously recognise in the text and also the subtleties that you want to draw our attention to in your installation.

The main problem for me is that the example of Houellebecq’s speculative fiction is not speculative enough for me. I haven’t read the novel so I might be getting the wrong end of the stick, but from the description in the text it comes out more like a sensationalist form of writing rather than speculative. Firstly, the idea of the future where extreme positions are dominant is not a fiction but a reality even more apparent today. Denmark, Sweden, Poland, UK, Greece, etc. only few examples in Europe where that’s the case. And in many other countries around the world this has been a reality for much longer. Similarly, the submission of women is constant battlefield between those who support this idea (because of religion [and I mean Catholics and other Christians too], culture, world view, whatever you want to call it) and those who have different take on it among them those struggling with the realities of certain laws that restrict people’s freedom because of their gender, etc. and Europe is not free of this either. So it is hardly a speculation, I would argue.

The fact that the protagonist is a middle aged European middle-class man whose choice is ‘to accept or not the submission of women’ is something that white men are presented with from birth already. And so this makes the speculation again highly problematic. It is more like playing out scenarios that are there anyway, and then ending up with most conformist position that can be there for men! Yay. What might be interesting perhaps, is the fact that in the text it seems to be an issue of choice that the white man decides to follow islam and its dogma that women perform particular roles in society. Yet, what is problematic again, is the fact that submission of women is associated with particular religion, forgetting that obviously it is part of our culture too. So all these issues relating really to the book and not to your approach necessarily, make it difficult for me to actually respond to your main point which is that of literature as a form of becoming, writing reading as a form of execution of certain speculative realities. You say that “Speculative fiction alters the rules of life, the superstructures we operate within, by introducing new societies, temporal and territorial manipulation, and/or technological advancements, thereby unlocking the theoretical girds of our blocked reality and removing even the most basic assumptions that the reader brings into the reading.” I would argue, that the example of Houllebecq’s work does completely the opposite. Not only because it is based on too many assumption and one viewpoint, but also because it reproduces the superstructure as a reality game – take a red or blue pill sort of situation. I hope this is useful and that I managed to explain clearly my position. I am looking forward to a conversation about it.

Magda